the last remaining species of wild horses
The bullet cleaves a jagged path
through the tongue.
The bullet carves a glow
in the skull, a black hole
in the brain, and the eyes
roll up into the head.
The animal falls, a tangled,
fly-bitten moon
the hunter kneels beside.
He unsheathes his knife
and slices the breast-
bone, up the abdomen,
then splits the pelvis, rolls
organs from the opening:
little planets gone soft
with blood. Cuts away
the glistening red web
of matter around the heart
and rinses the cavity
clean as, many years
from now, a flood will wash
the valley of corpses.
One by one, he pulls
each cuneiformed tooth
from the still-hot mouth,
still smelling of grasses,
and plucks each hair
from the tail for his violin.
Before dragging the body
back to the house,
as if it could rise
from the dead.
All night, the hunter
boils the bones.
At dawn, he saws
open a radius, tongues out
the jellied sunlight.
He cooks the brain into a stew
that tastes of fog.
Sells the hide to a soldier,
the teeth in a jar
to a curious boy, the curdling
blood in bottles
to the wolf herder.
Left the gristly heart
in the field. Left the eyes
in the field, unable to close
and no use to anyone
but the last flies of the season
which, a day before the snow
finally kills them,
consume the retina
piece by piece, photon
by photon, to see